Late night inspiration...

Just been playing around with some bits of paper after having comprehensively re-read the narrow gauge book on Calshot. This sketch doesn't sound that feasible given the right hand hangar will scale down to 50cm wide! Alternately, the castle can be on the left hand side.

I'd ideally like to follow the prototype as close as possible, in the next few days I'll have half a dozen NG wagons to play with which will need to be modified to resemble the real things.

We'll see...

Making decisions is always the hardest part!

After numerous comments and advice on NGRM-online by members some things have been called into question (and rightly so!). The balloon loop takes up far more space than I would and there are various other suggestions made such as adding a loop at the front of the layout for the narrow gauge. I have even had a sketch drawn up for me for which I am very grateful. I have modified it slightly to show some of the additions - hope he doesn't mind, but it's much better than I could do myself:

The question is, do I go for it?

At last - a design I'm happy with!

Click on sketch to enlarge

Well, here it is! 

It's been a long time coming but I think I've finally worked out a design. I must have bored you rigid with the amount of plans I've been doing and my plethora of postings about planning indecision!

Hopefully this design will work. On the left hand end we have a 2ft fiddle yard including a 3 road sector plate for the SG line (thick grey lines) and 3 holding loops for the NG line (thinner lines above). You can see the NG does a full 180 degree turn around the perimeter of the fiddle yard. It then veers off (top of plan) behind the layout to make connection with the continuous run NG loop (for when I'm tied up operating the SG line). Moving back on to the layout the NG line (at right) meets a spur for the goods platform. It then curves around the hangar to meet to the back of the loop again. Then there is a possible line back to the FY in front of the castle. Finally for the NG we have the front section where there is a two road engine shed masking the scenic exit. This then goes into a single line in front of the slipway before ending up into two sidings on a jetty.

As for the SG you can see the single line entering to the left of the scenic section where a siding runs parallel. We can now see a run around loop for running round goods wagons. There is one headshunt and one siding, both ending rather abruptly at the quay wall (much like Lymington Pier in the old days!)

I would be appreciative of any comments as always - any questions just jot them down and I'll be happy to answer them for you!

A scenario in 4ft

Today I took an hour off my busy revision schedule to continue planning the new layout. This is the latest (!) idea. There are bits I like, and bit's I don't.

I like the left hand end of the plan, but I'm not sure about the station as by the time I've marked out 47cm, there isn't a lot of station that can fit there! The station by the way is based on Lymington Pier as it was. I particularly liked the buffer stops that ended abruptly at the quay edge!

This sketch shows the similar previous design albeit without a station and with the headquarters building.